Terry Frei

Frei: Avs' Nathan MacKinnon in great place to learn, at Giguere house

AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Anybody have a truck Nathan MacKinnon can use? Monday is moving day for the Avalanche's prized prospect, the No. 1 overall choice in the June draft. And the prodigy from Nova Scotia is not just moving into someplace a real estate agent lined up, or into a prestigious loft building in LoDo.

Instead, reflecting that he just turned 18 on Sept. 1 and is the contemporary of Americans in the early stages of their senior years of high school, MacKinnon is moving into the area home of veteran goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, 36, and his wife, Kristen. In effect, the Avalanche rookie is becoming the fourth Giguere kid, joining Maxime-Olivier, 6; Luka, 4; and Felix, 1.

"I'm excited," MacKinnon said after Sunday's Burgundy-White intrasquad game in the sold-out Cadet Ice Arena. "He played (major junior) for Halifax, I played for Halifax, so we have kind of a connection there. And his wife is from Nova Scotia as well. He's won a Stanley Cup, so he's a very experienced player, and I'm looking forward to it. I've lived at home the last couple of years, so I didn't do much cooking or anything like that, so I think it's best that I live with somebody right now."

I know what you're thinking.

No, the Gigueres don't have room for Von Miller too.

"I think it's good for a young guy like that to be in a family environment," Giguere said of MacKinnon. "But sometimes, he will need to have some freedom as well. I'm not his dad. I'm going to give him some guidelines and I am going to share my experience with him, but at the end of the day, he's 18 years old. He's an adult.

"I've never done this before, so this will be a new experience for myself and my wife and my kids. We've made it so he has some privacy in the house, a nice little setup, and hopefully it's going to click for everybody. My kids are super-excited. They have a new buddy to play with."

Hockey, with a long tradition of "billet" family arrangements for players competing away from home at the junior level, occasionally sets up similar situations at the NHL level for the youngest players. As a rookie in 2011-12, Gabe Landeskog lived with an area family. In their rookie 2009-10 seasons, Matt Duchene lived with defenseman Adam Foote and his family, and Ryan O'Reilly moved in with winger Darcy Tucker and his family.

Going back to 1999, another former Halifax Moosehead star and Colorado first-round choice and rookie — Alex Tanguay — settled in at the home of veteran goalie Patrick Roy and his family. The 2013 twist there is that now, of course, Roy is the Avalanche's coach and Tanguay is a veteran winger who returned to Colorado in a June trade and is beginning his second tour of duty with the franchise.

Tanguay's advice to MacKinnon about living with a veteran goalie as a rookie?

"Just learn," Tanguay said. "You have so much learning to do at that age, not having to worry about doing the cleaning and doing the cooking and all that stuff. For him, it's going to be a great learning experience. Jiggy's a winner. I tried to learn from Patrick, I saw how he prepared himself, and he gave me some pieces of advice that I'm still using to this day.

"One of the first things he told me is, 'Take care of your body and your body will take care of you.' He said there were times you could have fun, but times when you need to be serious and prepare yourself. I learned that it's a long season, there are times you need to prepare and at that age, you need to figure it out on your own. Nate's a smart kid. He's got a bright future ahead of him."

Not all kids who play baseball are uniformed with fancy script across their chests, traveling to $1,000 instructional camps and drilled how to properly hit the cut-off man. Some kids just play to play.